British Gas (by alaric)

Ok, I'm starting to get annoyed with British Gas, so it's time for a RANT.

When we moved into the new home, it had prepayment meters for gas and electricity. For those not familiar, these are meters where, rather than having your meters read and being billed on what you have used, you have to take a smartcard to a shop and pay to get it "charged" with credit, which you then take home and insert into the meter. The meter keeps a credit balance, which it subtracts from as you use energy, and when it hits zero, you get switched off until you put more in.

This is annoying, as you have to keep remembering to top it up, and it's also more expensive; you get charged more per unit of energy used for the privilege of all that extra infrastructure. It's usually an arrangement one enters into if one is having trouble paying the energy bills, as it makes you unable to use more than you can afford. In which case, you can get put onto prepayment meters, at an even more inflated rate, in order to pay off the debt as well as buying your energy every time you top up.

So, we of course wanted OFF. To do this we first need to take over the gas and electricity supply from the previous folks, then when the account's in our name, we can get it transferred. The gas and electricity accounts are both run by British Gas, who helpfully send a letter to "The Homeowner" at the address telling us to get in touch with them as soon as possible so we can take over the account, as the previous folks had told them they'd moved out; in particular, it warned us that the previous owner's smartcards may be configured to repay debts, so we'd need our own ones to be charged a more reasonable rate.

So we sign up with them, as advised, and are told it'll take about twenty-eight days for "the paperwork" to happen, and then we'll get our new gas and electricity smartcards shortly after that.

So we plod on, using the previous owner's smartcards which, I note, are particularly expensive for gas at least; we're putting in £20 top-ups of gas at least once a week, and often twice.

Then we get a letter asking us to ring them to confirm some details, which I do, and am thanked for the details, and told the account take-over can now REALLY start, and will probably be finished around the end of February, and we should be able to get our meters swapped over to normal ones after that.

Well, it's now March, and I've rung up to ask about that, only to find out that only the electricity is in our name; the gas is still in the previous people's name. Apparently "an error" was made originally. Anyway, apparently that's being cleared up, and they're trying to get me set up for a credit meter, and I was on hold for ages, and got cut off, so rang up again, and was on hold for ages, then was told it was taking a while so they'd ring me back...

That was a few hours ago. I'm still waiting. And we're still running on the previous owner's smartcards, paying inflated rates. It'll have been two months soon.

WHY does this have to be so SLOW? Why can't they just put the account into our name immediately, when we ring up? Why does it need to take 28 days at all, let alone take the month and a half it's been so far?

While we've been waiting for the gas and electricity to be fully transferred, British Telecom have managed to lay an entire NEW PHONE LINE to our house, complete with digging trenches and everything, and Andrews and Arnold (AAISP) set up broadband on it. Both actions requiring ACTUAL WORK to happen rather than just changing some entries in a database and posting us some smartcards. AAISP's contribution to this alone is probably similar to what British Gas had to do; adding us to their accounts database and contracting BT to put an ADSL linecard in at the exchange, then posting us a configured router, and it took them one week, most of which was waiting for BT to do their bit...

World Book Day (by sarah)

Jean's school are having their World Book Day celebrations today and this year Jean decided to go as a dinosaur from Harry and His Bucket of Dinosaurs. She loves these books - we met the author last year at Wychwood Festival and she got a signed copy of one of his more recent books - they are really aimed for an older age group than her but she wanted it as a Daddy read (ie Daddy reads it to her when it's bed time!). My friend Ulrike then got her the book she is currently holding for Christmas 🙂

Jean loves books and she loves stories - including making them up - this morning we had a game of what was going to happen to her eggs whilst she was at dinosaur book day - she was taking in the book Cera and Her Bucket of Humans.

But it has come to my attention that other parents may not appreciate World Book Day - they think it is a hassel and just more work for them. I find this incredibly sad and wonder if they feel the same about all dress up days or weather it is just because they don't see the point of books.

We love books so it is unsuprising that Jean loves books but what has astonished me is that she now has an academic age of 8 and a half and a reading age that is higher. I have worked with her on literacy skills and stuff at home as I wanted to give her a good foundation if she turned out to be dyslexic like me.

But there is still a lot of illitracy and stuff in this country and I just wondered looking at peoples reactions weather the schools need to try and include the parents a bit more in World Book Day - unfortunatly that would probably be seen as the schools just being too demanding on time again. This is a double problem as even those parents that do want to be involved will actually be too busy. The normal work regime most families have leaves little time for the fun stuff that is seen as 'optional' or as a pouncy extra rich kids get.

It is all very well for people to say things like they should read instead of watching TV but alot of people are exhorsted when they come in from work and the TV is a relax time - the other issue being what if the parents themselves are not exactly literate?

We are a first world country and yet I come across teens who just scrap by. I'm not sure what the solution is nor weather McDonalds attempt at looking good by putting books in Happy Meals was a good thing or not. The kids seemed happy as it came with a handpuppet.

I think encouraging people into the libraries would be a good thing - but the libraries need to advatise outside of themselves and offer events similar to the litretary festivals where they have people dressed up as the characters and things - but this all takes money and one thing the libraries do not have is money. They are currently an endangered species and if they go then the kids that do use them are going to be even more screwed than usual. And increase in illiteracy means an increase in crime and an increase in poverty gaps which causes an increase in crime.

I do think the libraries are corner stones to solving this issues which is one of the reasons that I am trying so hard to provide books for Jean's school library.

Sarah’s Easter Collection (by sarah)

I have produced an audio book which I am selling to raise money to buy books for Jean's School Library (they get the profit). The disc contains The Little Book of Easter Poetry, The Little Chicken Song and the story Ester Rabbit - there is even me playing the recorder 🙂 It costs £5 with £1 p&p. There will be an online order form eventually but you can send cheques made payable to Sarah Snell-Pym

50 Newton Avenue

Gloucester

Glos

GL4 4NU

There will be a download version soon too (it will be £3) - there is currently no print version of this and probably wont be until next year. I managed to buy two books with the taking from The Little Book of Festive Poetry which the school are very happy with but they do basically need to restock their whole library.

Obviously if you are going to see me before/around Easter just pre-order what you want 🙂

And if anyone has a shop or anything that wants to stock a couple then let me know 🙂

Jean’s First Audition (by sarah)

Today Jean is going to school with her home made poetry book - she has written and illustrated the poems herself as part of this months WoPoWriMo challenge (World Poetry Writing Month). She is nervous and excited and asked me yesterday if I would make her an outfit if she gets through!

The poems are lovely especially the one about Monster Mary who wants everything of Jean's even her school things 🙂 There is also one about how the Moon is light and dark but not made of cheese 🙂

Going for…. Gloucestershire Poet Laureate (by sarah)

This Sunday the 4th of March at Gloucester New Inn there is the monthly arty chill which I have been attending to read my works poetic. This Sunday however is slightly different as they are running a competition for Gloucestershires Poet Laureate. The first phase of which is audience votes so I would like some people to come and vote for me - please.

Yep that's right I am going for this - I doubt I will get it as there are going to be like well know poetry types there - I am hoping for a few votes though so that I can continue to show my face in the arty circles of Gloucestershire and in fact the UK!

It costs £5 on the door to get in for non-performers and starts 3pm and ends at 9pm. There are lots of musicians and comedians and things there too and it's a really good event and I wont sulk if you vote for someone else (honest!).